Prescott Arizona
Prescott was the first capital of Arizona, and it is now know as "Arizona’s Christmas City", and justifiably so. The many American elm trees surrounding the city courthouse plaza, which covers over four acres, are decorated with lights and other ornaments for the Christmas season, which makes the entire plaza into a beautiful Winter scene. In 2008 the plaza made the list of top ten public spaces in America. The American Planning Association list puts Prescott in with such notables as Central Park in New York City and Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The Prescott Campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was ranked 3rd in the country by U.S. News & World Report as the "Best Aerospace-Aeronautical-Astronautical Engineering School." The Daytona Beach Campus of ERAU was ranked #1; the U.S. Air Force Academy was #2.
Prescott has a rich western history, which includes, but not limited to, such famous people as Doc Holliday and his girlfriend Big Nose Kate, Wyatt Earp and his brother Virgil, and last but not least, Prescott’s own hero, William Owen “Buckey” O’Neill.
O'Neill came to Arizona Territory in 1879 and arrived in Prescott in the spring of 1882 after first visiting Tombstone and Phoenix. In the beginning he worked as a court reporter and then he became editor of the Prescott Journal Miner. Eventually, he was elected Yavapai County Probate Judge, School Superintendent, tax assessor, Yavapai County Sheriff, and finally, Mayor of Prescott.
Buckey got his nickname from "bucking the tiger" at Faro card games.
He was one of the founders of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, later fames as Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. He was commander of Troop A of the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War and was killed in combat below Kettle Hill, in Cuba, on July 1, 1898. There are many stories still being told about Captain O'Neill's life, and all of them are colorful. When his body was finally returned from Cuba, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 1, 1899.
In 1907 the city placed a bronze memorial statue on the plaza honoring the members of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, who gathered at the plaza on May 4, 1898, before leaving for service in the Spanish-American War. Several other statues have been added to the plaza since that first memorial.